GO RECKLESS

“Reckless” will win the day.  Doing nothing or little to nothing or doing lots that amounts to nothing should drive us nuts.  I mean absolutely crazy.  For instance?  Here’s a big one: Every month, and sometimes more frequently, I am asked about or told about some church struggling “to keep the doors open.” 

Perhaps a close second, would be listening to someone talk about what their church is doing and the more you hear the more you realize they’re really doing not much of anything.  At the least, they’re not knocking themselves out doing Jesus-like things.  Which, last time I checked is what it means to be Jesus’ followers (or, if you prefer, to be Christian) and what it means to make disciples, who are supposed to observe what Jesus taught (“observe” would normally be taken to imply doing Jesus-like stuff).  And, it’s also what it means actually to be church, which Paul called “The Body of Christ.”  Bodies, when healthy, do things.  And the body of Christ would, presumably, do Jesus-like things.

Then, a third crazy-making instance is to listen to individual Christ-followers talk about the love of their lives exclusively in terms of going to certain places at certain times for a certain limited and carefully prescribed set of activities which, if you stripped away the obvious identifying markers, could equally describe a Mormon or a devoted member of a PAC, only some of them would probably be more serious.  They’re talking about the Lover of their souls, who is the way, the truth, and the life, as though such pedestrian activities could do justice to the Great Romance that one day climaxes at the ultimate cosmic wedding feast.

So I am yearning for something reckless, something that would drive most normal people who mind their own business equally nuts, because to them it would appear so irresponsible, wasteful, … well, you get the point.

Or maybe not?  I’m thinking about standing up against something you know for sure is wrong, even when everyone else is dressed up for a wedding, or a funeral, and to take the stand would seem horribly “out of place.”  Jesus fashioned a whip and went after the rascals in the Temple.  The original abolitionists couldn’t rest, and couldn’t abide proceedings that carried on as though all human beings were truly free and equal, as though they were not being brutalized.   Modern day abolitionists are growing equally passionate and reckless, though their numbers are still sadly modest.

Jesus said, “Let’s go!”  Often he meant, “Drop it, leave it or them, here and now, and … well, I’ll show you as we go.”  Can you imagine how reckless that struck their friends and families?

Peter hopped over the side of the boat, storm notwithstanding, and started to walk toward Jesus.  Compared with that, other stunning demands of Jesus such as, sell it all, or forget it all, seem rather tame.  Yet, even they give us a severe case of the reckless shivers.

Jesus asserted, like a guaranteed fact, that he would build his church so that its (the church’s) militant assault on the very gates of Hades would prevail.  Stack that up against the anxious longing some express “to keep the doors open.”  Is it even proper to use the same word—church—in these sentences?

In the absence of the right kind of recklessness something, or many things, go very wrong!

I’m convinced that all these instances of “safe” Christian and Church being could find a dangerous cure in an earnest “yes” to Jesus who still calls people to do truly reckless things.

Jesus is alive, present, and at work in our world today.  That includes yours as well.  He still has outrageous plans.  He still can hardly abide rascals in the Temple.  He still calls people “to get right up and come along,” to leave it, to give it, to do it, or maybe to stop doing it.  No debate or discussion, just the summons.  And he still comes walking our way in the fiercest of storms and welcomes our reckless responses.

What might happen if a few more of us could see him, hear him, and recklessly … ?

Comments

[John Hull]

Am I misreading, "he would build his church so that its (the church’s) militant assault on the very gates of Hades would not prevail."? Surely, it is a typo. The Church would not prevail over the gates of Hades? I know you, Bishop, and that is not what you intended to say.

[david kendall]

Yep, Typo. Now corrected. Thanks.

[Derek Moran]

That is an awesome and insanely powerful entry...it's the very kind of teaching that we need to hear in the church today.